A number of different types of message delivery systems are well known in the art. Such systems may utilize a variety of media formats, including facsimile, voice-mail, electronic mail (e-mail), and paging. Such systems, particularly those having voice and facsimile mail capabilities, may also provide an "Out Calling" feature. This feature, when selected by a mailbox owner, initiates an automatic call to a number pre-programmed by the mailbox owner whenever a message is received in the mailbox.
It is also well known in the art to provide for conversion between information in different media formats, depending upon user preference. In that regard, U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,996,707 issued to O'Malley et al. and 5,091,931 issued to Milewski provide for text to speech and facsimile to speech conversion, respectively.
In light of this prior art, Message Transfer and Routing Systems (MTRS) have been developed that attempt to integrate known message delivery systems and media conversion techniques. More particularly, U.S. Pat. No. 4,837,798 issued to Cohen et al. discloses a communication system having unified messaging.
As seen therein, messages having various media formats may be received in a mailbox. The mailbox owner may designate a particular media system for delivery of an indication that a message has been received. If desired, the mailbox owner may subsequently request that the message be transmitted to the designated media system, which may include conversion of the message from one media format to that of the designated media system. Thus, messages may be reviewed by a mailbox owner at a single point of contact.
Such message delivery systems, however, still suffer from a variety of problems. More specifically, such systems fail to provide optimum flexibility for routing of different types of messages. For example, such systems lack the capability to allow a mailbox owner to preselect specific destinations for delivery of a message, where the preselected destination depends upon various subscriber designated parameters such as the type of message, date, and time of day.